Scared of heights ?

Highest Glass Floor in the World

If you're scared of heights, it may be time to look away now.

Not content with having the tallest building in America , the owners of
Sears Tower in Chicago have installed four glass box viewing platforms which stick out of the building 103 floors up.


The balconies are suspended 1,353 feet in the air and jut out four feet from the building's Skydeck.

Floating on air: Visitors get their first view from The Ledge, four glass balconies

suspended from the 103rd floor of Chicago 's Sears Tower .

Designers say the platforms - collectively dubbed The Ledge - have been purposely

designed to make visitors feel as they are floating above the city.
The reward is unobstructed views of Chicago from the building's west side and a

heart-stopping vista of the street and Chicago River below - for those brave enough to look straight down.
'It's like walking on ice,' visitor Margaret Kemp, from Bishop, California said. 'The first step you take you think "Am I going down?"'

Long way up: Even the floor of the platforms are glass - few were brave enough to look straight down.


Fearless: Anna Kane, five, spreads out on the floor of the 10ft square box which is 1,353ft up.

Spectacular: She also enjoyed amazing views out across the city

Unfazed: Although some adults felt dizzy after experiencing the Ledge, children seemed to take it in their stride.

'At first I was kind of afraid but I got used to it,' 10-year-old Adam Kane from Alton ,

Illinois, said as clouds drifted by below.
'Look at all those tiny things that are usually huge.'
John Huston, one of the owners of the Sears Tower, even admitted to getting 'a little

queasy' the first time he ventured out on to the balcony. However, after 30 or 40 trips,

he seems to have got used to it.

Thrillseekers: The boxes jut out four feet from the building and were specifically

designed to make visitors feel as if they are floating
'The Sears Tower has always been about superlatives - tallest, largest, most iconic,'
he said. 'The Ledge is the world's most awesome view, the world's most precipitous
view, the view with the most wow in the world.'
The balconies are 10ft high and 10ft wide, can hold five tons, and have glass which
is 1.5 inch thick.

Inspiration came from the hundreds of forehead prints visitors left behind on Skydeck
windows every week. Now, staff will have a new glass surface to clean: floors.
Architect Ross Wimer said: 'We did studies that showed a four-foot-deep (1.2 metres)
enclosure makes you feel like you're floating since there's only room for one row of
people, not two.'
The Skydeck attracts 25,000 visitors on clear days. They each pay $15 to take an
elevator ride up to the 103rd floor of the 110-story office building that opened

lols notice only the kids are on it...

i dont know if us adults are smart or just chicken shits lol

There's gotta be some adults who do worse. How'd they keep the glass clean on the outside?

Hi All

1353 feet converts to 412 metres.I have done the Sydeny harbour bridge walk.When i was an apprentice I had to work on the top floors of Centre Point Tower.Have also been up to the top level of the Eiffel Tower and the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai.Am i scared of heights??? NO


Shane

Haha, I just love that when I brought up "unread posts" this was just below joshy's build thread! And that thing is gettin high

I heard that the view is amazing but the smell is terrible! Ha

I went out in those boxes.

I hate heights but it was pretty good for a thrill. Not much to see though, Chicago is just factories and smog.

Those window cleaners have some guts, chances of dying on the job is slim but stuff that.

Dave.

Its amazing how your senses can fool you, when I was an apprentice we had to climd to the top of a 250 foot communications tower. At the 225 foot level the floor was expanded mesh - see straight through and one of my workmates was absolutely shitting himself. Another 25 foot up and the floor was solid checker plate and my mate Steve was as happy as a pig in .....
Mind you the only way we could get him back down was for one of us to climb down above him and tread on his hands every time he stopped on the ladder. Took 3 hrs to get him down.

I've been up at the top of the stacks at both Hazelwood and Loy Yang Power stations, they are only about 240 meters (or about the same height as the Rialto) but standing at the top of that in an area of about 20 meters diameter and feeling the wind blow is quite nerve racking the first time. They reckon the towers move up to about 6 or 8 feet at the top in the wind and it feels like it. I've also been up inside Loy yang's cooling towers but they aren't even half the height and when turned on offer a nice warm shower when you get to the bottom.